Seven banks of Bangladesh are currently operating with capital deficits totalling over Tk 94 billion until September last year – a crisis that threatens to metastasise into a large-scale banking meltdown.

The total amount of capital deficit in state-owned banks Sonali, Rupali, Janata and BASIC was more than Tk 76.26 billion.

On Jan 24, the finance minister told parliament customers who had borrowed over Tk 100 million each in past 10 years still owe banks Tk 656.02 billion in unpaid loans.

The list of such loan defaulters features 1,956 individuals and organisations.

The Awami League has been in power for nine of these 10 years.

Two bridges like the one Bangladesh is building on the river Padma could be constructed with this money.

Panic spread among the people when many government organisations had started drawing money from private banks after a liquidity crisis hit the Farmers Bank.

Speaking at a programme on Feb 17, Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir alleged ‘some people’ were trying to put the entire banking sector in disarray by using the liquidity crisis at a private bank. He did not name the bank.

“A meaningless panic has been created over advance-to-deposit ratio. I don’t see any cause for (concern). It’s baseless,” he had said.